Friday, May 25, 2012

Friday's Forgotten Books, May 25, 2012

Next Week: Margaret Millar Week

Ed Gorman is the author of the Dev Conrad series and the Sam McCain books. You can find him here.

For what to me are obvious reasons I've never been a particular fan of the famous Jacques Barzun mystery list. I find his writing pedantic and his selection of books sometimes questionable. I'm sorry--it's just the reaction I've always had to it. I'll take H.R.F. Keating's 100 Mystery novels any day.

So I've had to look elsewhere for lists to help rubes like me find treasures I'd never come across otherwise. My favorite book is 1001 Midnights edited by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller. I've read at least forty of the novels recommended in this massive compendium. And sometimes for pleasure I just pick it up to read it.

Every genre is covered here. So are writers great and small. And who are some of the reviewers recommending books? How about Max Collins, Crider, George Kelly, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg, Robert Randisi, Art Scott and Julie Smith? Among many, many others including the Mulzinis themselves. (I have two reviews in here myself.) You can share the pleasure they have in touting overlooked books. And in a few cases downgrading a book that was so fashionable a few decades back.

God I love this book and you will too.

Patti Abbott: Montana, 1948, Larry Watson

Montana 1948, Larry Watson. I’d be hard pressed to think of a short novel that captured so vividly a summer in the life of a twelve year old boy. David’s father is a small town sheriff who lives under the shadow of the father that once held his office and the brother who came home a war hero. When the housekeeper, a Sioux woman, becomes ill, that brother, now the town doctor is called on for help despite protestations from the ill woman. Is it native lore that makes her fearful? What happens next splinters both the family and the town. This is a gem: lucid and long-lasting.

I share Ed's peference for 1001 MIDNIGHTS over COC. The variety of viewpoints is one of the book's strengths. So many different tastes, so many different insights. Steve Lewis does a great service in reprinting many of the reviews from that book at his Mystery*File blog.

Barzun picked some real winners for me notably SUCH FRIENDS ARE DANGEROUS and MURDER ON THE MOOR both of which I've reviewed on the 'net. But for the most part I can't abide his condescension.

And don't miss Ed's endorsement (with which I concur) of the Keating 100 Best...but, I too, am an appreciator of the reprints of 1001 in Mystery*File...and am glad to have two endorsements of the Watson, which does look interesting.

Gerard: Plenty of action in those supposedly "non-genre" guys such as McCarthy and Clark...and I certainly didn't like it much more than Marcia Muller did when essentially no one showed at the Borders I worked at for her tour stop (it didn't help that even as the back-office manager I hadn't been told she was coming by our publicist, much less our customers). None of our events in that DC suburbs store worked, unless the guest was a politician (Barney Frank did best) or, perhaps not so oddly, Madeliene L'engle...

About Me

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two print novels CONCRETE ANGEL (2015) and SHOT IN DETROIT (2016)(Polis Books). CONCRETE ANGEL was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award in 2016. SHOT IN DETROIT was nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. A collection of her stories I BRING SORROW AND OTHER STORIES OF TRANSGRESSION will appear in 2018.